


A (Mis)fortunate Man

by sans_patronymic



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Epistolary, Pre-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-02 09:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8662633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sans_patronymic/pseuds/sans_patronymic
Summary: December, 1880. Watson writes a note which may be his last.December, 1899. Watson writes back.





	

December, 1880.

 

I am not a fortunate man. 

I am not a fortunate man, though most everyone I meet is convinced of the opposite. It was a _gift_ to be accepted on the medical track; a _blessing_ to have survived Maiwand; _pure luck_ to get dispatched to London on the doll. Bollocks every one.

When I was a young lad, and my father still alive, he told me medicine was a decent profession, respectable, and would keep me well-off. Rubbish. Medicine has impoverished me, out of pocket and of soul. Expensive texts, university fees, lodgings, supplies, the dismal misery of witnessing the human form made meat. Man is not divine. Human beings are pathetic, winging creatures, and I am unfortunate enough to nurse them. To know their frailty and to still care for each sniveling one of them, to harbor my failures, is a curse I do not wish on the worst of men. 

When I close my eyes at night, I see before me the faces of men I have disappointed. No—that isn't it. 'Faces' is inaccurate and 'disappointed' is too mild. I see pieces of the men I've lost. I see limbs and livers and lives tossed here and there. I see brave men reduced to pulp, while I slink away with the rest of the cowards. I see myself, sunning on a veranda, dizzy with fear as much as fever, alive when better men are dead.

I am not a fortunate man and that is precisely why I gamble, to remind myself of this fact. To prove it resolutely to the well-wishers and do-gooders, who would try to bolster my misery by pointing out how much worse I could have it. _Very well_ , I say, _let's have worse then_ , and toss my last shilling on the table when the cards in my hands spell nothing but ruin. 

They are going to turn me out of this hotel. I can feel it. The manager keeps his polite, respectful smile, but I am two weeks behind in recompense and the maid no longer bothers to make up my bed. How could she? Every time she has come ‘round this week, I've still been in it, 'til three or four in the afternoon. I should like never again to get up before I can call the day wasted. And that goes double for myself. No whiskey tastes better than that first, suckled straight from the bottle before dressing.

And so, I drink. I should not say it's alcoholism. No, Mother, if you can read these lines from where you rest, I have not fallen into the family business! I do not drink to function. I drink to avoid functioning _too_ highly, thinking _too_ clearly, feeling _too_ sharply.  

I drink the way a carriage horse has blinders. To soothe. To distract. To obfuscate the oppressiveness of crowds. I drink, so that when a crate falls off the back of a cart, or a train whistle sounds, or a busker calls out, I do not leap from my skin and run skittering for the nearest cover. _My nerves are shaken_ , is what I am meant to say when someone inquires after my health. 

_Please, do not alarm yourself. I am recently returned from Afghanistan, and my nerves are shaken_. Who would trust a surgeon with shaken nerves? 

No, I am not a fortunate man. I waste opportunities, spend what little there is; Fate has ruined my body, I am laying waste to the rest of me. Caged and desperate, I seem destined only to survive at worse and worse odds. I cannot improve my odds, but I may alter my destiny...

My dear reader, I do not know you. Undoubtedly, you do not know me, though I hope with this missive you may understand the logic of the circumstance which no doubt brings you here. May life bring you more fortune than it has me.  

May God forgive me.

 

 

  

December, 1899.

 

As Holmes and I prepare to usher in the new century, I chanced upon the above relic from my turbulent days, stuffed into one of my older journals, buried in a nearly-forgotten trunk in the lumber room. It is scrawled upon Strand Hotel stationary in a shaky hand with a tell-tale leftwards slant Holmes should not fail to note indicates a most troubled and anxious mind.  

I cannot begin to describe the otherworldly sensation the reading of this note has brought upon me. The author is, of course, none other than myself, though my memories of that time seem to belong to someone else entirely. I recall, as if recalling a play or performance, writing something like this and deciding: _Either I must improve my station, else, I sign this and eat my service revolver_. I am so impossibly far from that man, it feels incongruous that those memories of his should be mine as well. It is me, and it is not me. It is self-preservation—the mind does not like to remember pain, not in its fullest, for that, I am eternally grateful.

Nevertheless, my heart aches for this me who is not me, who saw nothing before him but the slow, interminable march of comfortless, meaningless day after day. Very well, young Watson, you have given me the summary of your life. What shall I tell you of mine?

 I am a fortunate man. Albeit, I have weathered my share of hardships. My health never recovered sufficiently to extend my military career. I have lost a wife and a dear friend, though Fortune has seen fit to return one to me. Before you protest that my sum is still null, let me caution you that life is not a numbers game. Which is fortunate, because we are both rubbish at numbers games.

Medicine has never made me a wealthy man, at least, not in coin. I have bought and sold more practices than most men visit in a lifetime, seeming always to purchase at cost and sell at a loss. Yet, for every man I lost in Afghanistan, I have helped to bring so many children into this world, have comforted so many elderly in their final years, have stitched so many wounds, tended so many coughs. 

I have learned that to care for the truly helpless is indeed a blessing—not a curse. Our world is cruel; crueler, it seems, everyday. In the face of industry, greed, avarice, it is easier for many to see mankind as meat, harder to see the humanity in the hungry, or the frail, or the ‘unproductive.’ I am grateful to be immune to cynicism, and to have held fast to that flame of kindness, which burns so painfully within you.

Yes, the dreams affect me, too. They grow rarer with each passing year, yet rise up again at the strangest summons; a bit of indigestion, or a terse exchange with a disrespectful chap on the Underground can be enough to send me nightmares. But now, when I awake in fright, I am not alone. When I reach out in the darkness, there is a hand to take my own. 

Which brings me to my final, and dare I say, crowning achievement: Holmes. My dear, young Watson, I long to tell you how near you are to meeting him—days away. Very soon you will wake up, pour yourself into your clothes, make your way to the Criterion Bar at an ungodly early hour for a drink, and your life will be altered incontrovertibly. I know you should never believe it, but it will happen.

What can I tell you about Mr. Sherlock Holmes? I have called him my achievement, and that much is true; he needs you just as chiefly as you need him, perhaps more so. Here is a man who is in danger of seeing mankind as meat, of turning his back to the world. His coldness will inspire you to be warmer; his harshness, to be gentler. In this respect, you lead, and he will follow; he will grow into a kind, generous man, and he will blame you for it. He will fill your life, as he fills mine, with music, adventure, laughter, and a profound, abiding companionship. Be not afraid of the depths of these feelings.

I know what it is to love, and to be loved. It is a shield against all wounds and a balm to heal them. It is comfortable silences and endless conversations. It is an inextinguishable light. It is attending dull concerts without complaint. It is forgetting my cigarette case, only to find someone has brought it for me. It is a woman who died too young and it is a man who escaped death. A man who is presently pacing in front of the fireplace, because we were meant to leave ten minutes ago, and I am still in my dressing gown. It is someone who will forgive me for making us miss the first act, so that I might write to you.  

And so I must leave you, my dear, young Watson. Know that I am a fortunate man, and you shall be too. May you live to see tomorrow—I promise you shan’t regret it.  
  


Wishing you a Merry Christmas & Very Happy New Year,

John H. Watson.


End file.
